


There is a Line. It is Already Crossed.

by Tormented_Gale



Category: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: M/M, Unhealthy Relationships, implied abusive relationship, not explicit, underage relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 06:40:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2498300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tormented_Gale/pseuds/Tormented_Gale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sync reflects on his time with Van and what happens when it (and his usefulness) runs out.</p><p>Tumblr Prompt: An unusual/unliked ship. Chose VanXSync.</p><p>Please note: There is no explicitness going on in this short.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There is a Line. It is Already Crossed.

He’s not sure what to call it. Adoration, respect, awe, terror, need, admiration, debt, acceptance, rejection - they all seem to fit, they all seem to make sense. He wouldn’t call it love, because that would be the boldest lie he could tell. He can’t call it dominance or submission, because that would mean he had some kind of choice or control in the first place, and that’s never been the case.

He doesn’t follow blindly. His reasons are his own, or so he tells himself, and he fights at the side of a man who can actually  _do_ something about the hated Score. He doesn’t need another reason to follow, but time passes, and he has another, and he doesn’t know what to do with it.

There’s no affection. There’s no gentleness. Even the slight touches to his cheek feel more like a blade pressed to his skin than fingertips. Perhaps it is because he knows this man can break him in twain if he so chooses, or perhaps it is his own misguided sense of danger alerting him to the more powerful of the two of them. He is a Fon Master’s replica, but the other is an original, and one who has trained countless men and women in fighting.

Sync is a babe by comparison.

He is naive. He is lonely. He is lost. And the other knows each of these things. The Other, for Sync cannot name him by another title besides Commandant, knows this too, and he is easy with his compliments, and horribly terrible with his retribution. Though Sync knows which is which, sometimes they are indistinguishable from one another. The Other knows how to inflict pain with a simple look.

He, the lonely, naive, lost one, cannot leave despite it.

He fights with all the more determination, and has more than once glanced over his shoulder to see that smile, the one that he could almost describe as praising, shining at him, and it makes the pain worth it, he thinks. No one else smiles at him like that, tells him he has worth for as long as he is useful.

And he  _is_ useful. _  
_

He is a spy, a soldier, a replica, and forever damned. It is a heady combination, one that no one will touch save for the Other, and even that touch is calculated. It is a measured movement, a Knight to C4, a checkmate before Sync can think, and he is swept into the decision without a chance to possibly think of his own.

Oh it is beyond twisted - he is well aware of that now. And he knows he is simply being used, but being used is better than being abandoned and left to burn in the depths of a volcano. Almost anything is better than that.

So he hides the bruises, hides the marks, hides the pain behind a mask - a mask the Other gave him - and fights with every inch of himself. The others do not matter. Even some of his goals have blurred. All that remains is an empty hole where a soul should be, and that too is taken by the Other.

When he dies, Sync thinks of the Commandant, and wonders if he even knows that Sync actually thought something stirred within him - hatred and affection were so closely wrought together he had no way of separating them or of knowing the difference - when he received the Other’s vague smiles.

When he is resurrected, and he hears the voice that rescued and damned him both, he closes his eyes and inevitably accepts that his death too is not his decision. His hate, his anger, all of it is owned by, controlled by the Other. No longer does he have choices or a self - did he ever? he wonders - but he does have the Other.

And when, inevitably, he once again faces his death, it is alone, with the cries of battle around him. It is the first time in his entire existence he feels free, and he laughs, he laughs so long and so hard while his fonons dissipate, and he hears it cracking and ringing and oh it goes on and on, for it is all he can do, all that he has, and he lets it too go, lest it be destroyed along with his physical body. He doesn’t notice the tears that dribble down his cheeks like the blood from his wounds.

Van never cared - Sync never doubted that.


End file.
